Trying Something New

I feel free in my confinement.

My mind has been limited by commitment. It’s hard to explore an idea, tracking its path as it winds around obstacles, when you are driving a forty-ton truck through a gaggle of four-wheelers. By the time I get to a place where I can pull off for a break, lines have been lost, moods have wisped away and characters full of life have fallen with no stone to mark even their passing.

But today, I feel free in my confinement. 

I have to admit I was envious in a way of those who had to stay home during the start of the pandemic. I would have loved to have been there for my wife and kids, even facing a scary unknown, just being together. Instead, I, as most truckers, continued on the road, resupplying the toilet paper and wet wipes that were so crucial to saving all but the 200,000 who fell over these last few months. We were busy. There were times I barely got my legally required 34 hour breaks between driving and unloading trailers hooked to my International sleeper cab and 70 hour work week. For a while, many roads were empty except for my fellow drivers, an occasional cop, some essential workers and a few who felt the rules should apply to others and not them. By the second week, we started to see more and more come out from their houses, even as Washington and New York proclaimed it our patriotic duty to stay home here in Missouri, and Kansas, where I delivered to a store in an area where not one case had been found within 5 counties. A month later, you can no longer tell there was a slowdown in traffic on these roads.

I am home now, on my own lockdown. 

And I won’t miss the Karens of the world, who have multiplied like the virus lately, staring at me in the back of my trailer with daggers in their eyes because I am not wearing a mask. It doesn’t matter to them that you are standing 50 feet away or that the inside of the back of a trailer reaches 120 degrees on a hot Midwest summer afternoon. I swear, while they spent a month in quarantine, I was at risk every day. For the first couple of weeks people were thankful for the truckers who had to stay out. I had someone buy me a meal, a couple of stores gave me gift bags, had a lot of people who were scurrying out to get the items they needed to continue their shelter in place say thanks, they really appreciated my service. I almost felt like I was being treated like a veteran of military service. I did not feel like a hero, but was glad to be appreciated. That soon dwindled and as things continued, people became downright rude. At one store, though everything else was closed around them and I had to shut down in their alley for a 4am delivery, I was denied even the decency of a restroom. When I argued that I was only there at their company’s orders and there were absolutely no other options, one employee finally handed me the key. When I finished, the other employee sprayed the key as I handed it back to her, then went through the store loudly announcing she had to go sterilize the toilet. The manager then told me she did not care if I did not have any other options, her restroom was off limits to me. Karens. Not worried about your well being, but now that they are out on the road again, you better get that goddamn mask on over your nose and mouth!

I don’t have a mask on right now. 

Not really excited about how I got time off. My knee has been quite a problem as I have aged. No real injuries, but I kind of expected to have leg problems. My dad has rheumatoid arthritis in his ankles. I seem to follow in his footsteps, just 27 years behind. So when the orthopedic specialist said I should expect that I will need to have my knees replaced 18 months ago, I put it off even though I knew it inevitable. The injections helped for a few months, but my right knee was done. So, I scheduled the appointment I didn’t want, made preparations with work and family, and had it done. It’s an overnight stay at the hospital. Then 6-8 weeks of physical therapy if there are no complications and you are back to relatively new. Albeit with a 8 inch slicing scar visible whenever you wear shorts (Me? Always if possible). I am in my second week of the process. 

Lying on my couch with a dog resting on my shoulder.

It has been nice to catch up over the last few days on some ideas. I finished writing/editing about a dozen pieces, sending them to various forums. I am working also on a novel idea—it will be my first. Last night, the editor of one of the poetry journals I sent to contacted me, saying she saw a book in one of my submissions. Now, my mind is racing as to how that could happen. I contacted my talented niece to see if she could help me with illustrations. My brain has been freed in my confinement! 

So, what is happening outside my front door?